The Forum's Favourite Poems

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
in time of daffodils

in time of daffodils (who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why, remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so (forgetting seem)

in time of roses (who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if, remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek (forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me, remember me

p. ?

e. e. cummings
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Spike Milligan – The Serious Poet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b016w0nh

Spike Milligan's 3 daughters, Sile, Laura and Jane discuss how their father's serious poetry reflected his life and personality. Milligan's writing was intimate and honest.
Spike Milligan's funny verse is well loved and his poem On The Ning Nang Nong was once voted the UK's favourite comic poem. However, there is a body of serious poetry that Spike Milligan wrote which, although is lesser known, is equally as powerful. A prolific writer, Milligan used his poetry as an outlet for his feelings about everything in his life from his family, to losing friends in the war, to the issues he cared about.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
The Soldiers At Lauro

Young are our dead
Like babies they lie
The wombs they blest once
Not healed dry
And yet – too soon
Into each space
A cold earth falls
On colder face.
Quite still they lie
These fresh-cut reeds
Clutched in earth
Like winter seeds
But they will not bloom
When called by spring
To burst with leaf
And blossoming
They sleep on
In silent dust
As crosses rot
And helmets rust.


Spike Milligan
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
Gramaisc said:
Austrian concrete poet Ernst Jandl was featured on Radio 4 today in Schtzngrmm. Not up on iPlayer yet, but it should be soon.
schtzngrmm


schtzngrmm
schtzngrmm
t-t-t-t
t-t-t-t
grrrmmmmm
t-t-t-t
s------c------h
tzngrmm
tzngrmm
tzngrmm
grrrmmmmm
schtzn
schtzn
t-t-t-t
t-t-t-t
schtzngrmm
schtzngrmm
tssssssssssssssssssss
grrt
grrrrrt
grrrrrrrrrt
scht
scht
t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t
scht
tzngrmm
tzngrmm
t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t
scht
scht
scht
scht
scht
grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
t-tt

c. 1956 (?)

Ernst Jandl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixgbtOcEgXg&feature=related
 

arthur

Nixon Garden Neatness
Not Waving but Drowning



Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
September 1st, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

p. 1939

W H AUDEN
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
dylis said:
Not Waving but Drowning



Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Poor chap, he always loved larking
And now he's dead
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
They said.

Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
(Still the dead one lay moaning)
I was much too far out all my life
And not waving but drowning.

p. 1957

STEVIE SMITH
Some recognition of the poet is surely in order? Date of publication is arguably more important; in a 'placing of sensibility' sort of way, sort of thing.



, it was too cold always :)
- not drowning but waving
animated-smileys-waving-008.gif
 

hammerman

Active Member
I am a sucker for a nice poem.....and Have a diverse taste....Wilfred Owen to Spike Milligan

Came across this a couple of months ago.....apparently an Olympic 2012 poem....enjoy!!


INVISIBLE KISSES

by Lemn Sissay

If there was ever one
Whom when you were sleeping
Would wipe your tears
When in dreams you were weeping;
Who would offer you time
When others demand;
Whose love lay more infinite
Than grains of sand.

If there was ever one
To whom you could cry;
Who would gather each tear
And blow it dry;
Who would offer help
On the mountains of time;
Who would stop to let each sunset
Soothe the jaded mind.

If there was ever one
To whom when you run
Will push back the clouds
So you are bathed in sun;
Who would open arms
If you would fall;
Who would show you everything
If you lost it all.

If there was ever one
Who when you achieve
Was there before the dream
And even then believed;
Who would clear the air
When it’s full of loss;
Who would count love
Before the cost.

If there was ever one
Who when you are cold
Will summon warm air
For your hands to hold;
Who would make peace
In pouring pain,
Make laughter fall
In falling rain.

If there was ever one
Who can offer you this and more;
Who in keyless rooms
Can open doors;
Who in open doors
Can see open fields
And in open fields
See harvests yield.

Then see only my face
In the reflection of these tides
Trough the clear water
Beyond the river side.
All I can send is love
In all that this is
A poem and a necklace
Of invisible kisses.
 

Withnail

Well-Known Forumite
The more it
SNOWS-tiddely-pom,
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
The more it
GOES-tiddely-pom
On
Snowing.

And nobody
KNOWS-tiddely-pom,
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
How cold my
TOES-tiddely-pom
Are
Growing.

p.1928

POOH BEAR
 

Toble

Well-Known Forumite
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

--William Blake.
(bonus point if you can identify where a sad sci-fi nerd like me first heard it)
 

KencoPlenco

Well-Known Forumite
On the Ning Nang Nong Where the Cows go Bong! and the monkeys all say BOO! There's a Nong Nang Ning Where the trees go Ping! And the tea pots jibber jabber joo. On the Nong Ning NangAll the mice go Clang And you just can't catch 'em when they do! So its Ning Nang Nong Cows go Bong!Nong Nang Ning Trees go ping Nong Ning Nang The mice go Clang What a noisy place to belong is the
Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
 
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